PoliticalChic
Diamond Member
The following is from "The Devils Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions," by David Berlinski...
1. There are those who argue that science is in opposition to religion, and that science offers sophisticated men and women a coherent vision of the universe.
2. There have been four powerful and profound scientific theories since the great scientific revolution was set in motion in the seventeenth century:
a. Newtonian mechanics,
b. Maxwells theory of the electromagnetic field,
c. Special and general relativity
d. And quantum mechanics
3. English mathematical physicist Roger Penrose has described the theories as sometimes phenomenally accurate, but a tantalizingly inconsistent scheme of things. The result, we know better than we did what we do not know, and what we have not grasped: how the universe began, how the mind functions, why we are here, how life emerged, or, with assurance, that it did.
4. No scientific theory touches on the mysteries that the religious tradition addresses. When and if one questions the meaning of life, the number of his days, he hardy turns to algebraic quantum field theory for the answer.
a. Prominent figures have hypothesized that we are merely cosmic accidents. Bertrand Russell, Jacques Monod, Steven Weinberg, and Richard Dawkins have said it is so and it is an article of their faith based on the confidence of men convinced that nature has equipped them in ways the rest of us cannot bear to contemplate.
There is not the slightest reason to think that this is so.
5. While science has nothing of value to say on the great and aching questions of life, death, love and meaning, what the religious traditions of mankind have said forms a coherent body of thought. It is a system of belief both adequate and more fitting to the complexities of our existence: recompense for suffering, principles beyond selfishness. Reassurance.
While I do not know if any of this is true, I am certain that the scientific community does not know that it is false.
1. There are those who argue that science is in opposition to religion, and that science offers sophisticated men and women a coherent vision of the universe.
2. There have been four powerful and profound scientific theories since the great scientific revolution was set in motion in the seventeenth century:
a. Newtonian mechanics,
b. Maxwells theory of the electromagnetic field,
c. Special and general relativity
d. And quantum mechanics
3. English mathematical physicist Roger Penrose has described the theories as sometimes phenomenally accurate, but a tantalizingly inconsistent scheme of things. The result, we know better than we did what we do not know, and what we have not grasped: how the universe began, how the mind functions, why we are here, how life emerged, or, with assurance, that it did.
4. No scientific theory touches on the mysteries that the religious tradition addresses. When and if one questions the meaning of life, the number of his days, he hardy turns to algebraic quantum field theory for the answer.
a. Prominent figures have hypothesized that we are merely cosmic accidents. Bertrand Russell, Jacques Monod, Steven Weinberg, and Richard Dawkins have said it is so and it is an article of their faith based on the confidence of men convinced that nature has equipped them in ways the rest of us cannot bear to contemplate.
There is not the slightest reason to think that this is so.
5. While science has nothing of value to say on the great and aching questions of life, death, love and meaning, what the religious traditions of mankind have said forms a coherent body of thought. It is a system of belief both adequate and more fitting to the complexities of our existence: recompense for suffering, principles beyond selfishness. Reassurance.
While I do not know if any of this is true, I am certain that the scientific community does not know that it is false.